Missing From the System? Valles Caldera National Preserve

Should Valles Caldera National Preserve be adding to the National Park System? Tom Ribe photos.

Editor's note: Across the country, there are many spectacular landscapes that would fit appropriately within the National Park System. This article, the first in an occasional series that looks at some of these places, describes Valles Caldera National Preserve and explains why it would make a strong addition to the park system. To stay abreast of efforts to point out landscapes deserving of inclusion in the National Park System, along with reading the Traveler, check out People United For Parks.

After years when few additions have been made to the National Park System, many important places are poised to be added. A huge dormant volcano field in northern New Mexico might well become one of the first additions under the Obama administration. The 89,000-acre Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez Mountains due west of Santa Fe might sound like an area already well-protected, but its management by a troubled private sector “trust” has activists campaigning hard for its inclusion in the National Park System this year.

The Valles Caldera is a circle of 11,200-foot mountains that cradle vast valleys full of grass and wildlife and rippled with hot springs and clear creeks. Its rim mountains are cloaked in fir, aspen, pine and spruce. The Valles Caldera stands at the center of the Pueblo Indian world of the Southwest with many living Pueblo communities a short distance from its flanks and the great “Anasazi” (ancestral pueblo) ruins at Bandelier National Monument, Chaco Culture National Historical Park and various state parks nearby.

Complementing its expansive wild beauty is the rich, colorful history of the area. Hispanos from centuries-old villages to its immediate north ventured into the caldera warily before the American army drove Apache and Navajo raiders from its forests in the 1860s. Pages from the Valles Caldera’s rough past tell of sheep ranchers grazing its valleys nearly to dust during the Depression, and loggers spiraling many of the mountains with logging roads until the 1970s.

But it's the rugged and spectacular scenery that most draws visitors. The Valles Caldera is a huge, dormant field of volcanoes that erupted between 1 million and 20 million years ago. The volcanism sculpted a magnificent and well-preserved complex of landscape features. The Pajarito Plateau (where the National Park Service’s Bandelier National Monument lies just east of the Valles Caldera) reveals orange and pink volcanic cliffs, rich with archeological sites. Many of the high Jemez Mountains formed by massive volcanic ash-spewing eruptions are contained within the Valles Caldera National Preserve and excite geologists, many of whom have called for the preserve to be declared a World Heritage Site.

Interestingly, the latest movement for national park status is not the first for Valles Caldera. Nearly a century ago the area repeatedly drew the interest of national park planners. Today Valles Caldera offers the Park Service a chance to interpret this rich human history and extraordinary volcanism for the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to Bandelier National Monument and to nearby Santa Fe, (one of the most visited tourist destinations in the United States).

Conservationists see its livestock-worn landscape and numerous old logging roads as a prime place for the Park Service to lead environmental restoration programs employing young people from nearby low-income areas while helping establish a stronger land ethic in the area. Along with the restoration work, the preserve offers exceptional environmental and science education prospects as well, given its accessibility and the ease with which people can visit its varied environments.

Adding Valles Caldera to the National Park System would technically be relatively easy, as the land already is owned by the federal government. In 2000 the land occupied by the preserve was purchased by the federal government amid a political battle between those who felt New Mexico had too much public land and many others who saw the exceptional beauty of the Valles Caldera threatened by continued private ownership, ranching and potential real estate development. As a compromise, rather than setting up the preserve under an agency such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Park Service, a "trust" was created to manage the preserve as a "government corporation" (like the Post Office) overseen by a board of term-limited, politically appointed private-sector trustees. Critics say these nine trustees have been reinventing public-land management in largely closed meetings as they struggle under a mandate to become "financially self-sufficient" by 2015. No other piece of wild Western land has this structure, and few people -- including the trustees themselves -- believe it can work.

With little public resistance, conservationists led by a group called Caldera Action have pressed New Mexico’s congressional delegation to introduce legislation that would abolish the VCNP Trust and transfer Valles Caldera to the National Park Service as a reserve (similar to Mojave National Preserve or Big Thicket National Preserve) where hunting and fishing would continue but national park standards would apply.

Senator Jeff Bingaman, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, asked the National Park Service to conduct a feasibility study in 2009 and indications are, with continued public encouragement, that a bill establishing the Valles Caldera National Preserve as America’s newest National Park Preserve will pass in 2010.

Comments

I would love to see Valles Caldera become the newest National Park Preserve. I lived in Santa Fe during the early 1990's and loved the beauty of this area. At that time, this land was completely privately owned (as I recall) and alas, I never got to hike in this area at the time because I obeyed the "No trespassing" signs. I drove by Valles Caldera about two years ago with my children, but we were on our way to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and did not take the time to stop. I really want to go back and explore this area.

I have visited this amazing chunk of Mother Nature, trespassing and not.
When the NPS agrees to not "improve" any roads, trails or stuctures, chop in any new roads or trails or parking lots, build any new lodges or visitor centers, place any signs or bridge any streams.
When the NPS agrees to remove all mountain biking routes, stop the hunting, van tours, sleigh rides and wagon rides, quit the grazing and "special events," then agree to designate the area as Wilderness,
I will then be in favor of.
Otherwise really, whats the difference?

A: More jobs for lifetime bureaucrats who are emotionally, spiritually and psychologically unattached to this particular area, but are dedicated to riding the taxpayer funded ladder to a secure retirement.

I visited this site in '08, and thought it was beautiful and brilliant. This is an incredibly well-preserved and readily apparent caldera, unlike many others in the country. I think it'd be a nice add to the NPS (I'm not as cynical about the NPS as the two previous posters :-P )

If it's adjacent to Bandelier National Monument, as BAND's maps seem to show, why not just add it to the Monument instead of going to the trouble of creating a new unit, assuming of course, that Bandelier's staff & budget are appropriately increased?

Turn it into a national park and it will become another Yellowtone: traffic jams and crowded boardwalks.

Keep it the way it is and only a select, paying few get to see its beauty.

Neither way seems like a good answer. The feeling I always get from the National Parks is that they want people to drive through, take a few pictures and leave. The fees and permits discourage real outdoor experiences. While some land should be preserved to remain as untouched as possible, I think the wilderness designations do a better job than the parks or the Valles Caldera Trust.

I revisited the Caldera in Sept 2010, after not being in NM for 8 yrs. I am still captivated by the beauty of the Jemez Mountains and surrounding area. Although my previous visits (4) were relatively short term, 3- 6 days apiece, I have managed to walk and fish in reasonably uncrowded conditions in the caldera. While not free, fees charged for recreation opportunities are certainly reasonable (try playing golf). I would certainly be in favor of Park Service protections- the lands are definitely of park quality. While I appreciate designated wilderness areas, I wouldn't remove roads or infrasructure- I don't think that would be cost-effective.

I know that I appreciate the access to the caldera which was made available by the establishment of the Preserve. If the enabling legislation ( requiring profitability by 2015) can't be changed, I would suggest US Park Service inclusion. If enabling legislation can be modified, let's keep the Preserve.

I revisited the Caldera in Sept 2010, after not being in NM for 8 yrs. I am still captivated by the beauty of the Jemez Mountains and surrounding area. Although my previous visits (4) were relatively short term, 3- 6 days apiece, I have managed to walk and fish in reasonably uncrowded conditions in the caldera. While not free, fees charged for recreation opportunities are certainly reasonable (try playing golf). I would certainly be in favor of Park Service protections- the lands are definitely of park quality. While I appreciate designated wilderness areas, I wouldn't remove roads or infrasructure- I don't think that would be cost-effective.

I know that I appreciate the access to the caldera which was made available by the establishment of the Preserve. If the enabling legislation ( requiring profitability by 2015) can't be changed, I would suggest US Park Service inclusion. If enabling legislation can be modified, let's keep the Preserve.

Visited the caldera in 2007 and was pleasantly suprised to see a place in such pristine condition that wasn't already part of the National Park system. There are a lot of competing interests taking place there now (agriculture, hunting, etc.) that would have to continue for people to be agreeable. So the Preserve label seems to suit it better than "National Park". There are a LOT of elk in that area! In one of my high res digital photos of the view across the center of the caldera, I got home and zoomed in using my computer screen, and it was AMAZING how many elk were roaming about off in the distance (weren't visible to the naked eye). Any visitor center built here could/should be OUTSIDE the caldera rim as to not spoil the view from anywhere inside. I imagine there would be alot of resistance to this. People who know the place even exists will be mad as a hornet to see visitation increase 10-fold -- unless they are profiting from it, of course.